Annie Jacobsen

But they can't shoot down ballistic missiles.

You want like the five-minute or the 30-second ballistic missile lesson because this is what I need.

I write for the layman.

I think part of the reason why nuclear war is not spoken about in the general public is because it's set up to be intimidating.

You'll hear a lot of defense people and analysts using very esoteric language.

And it kind of excludes the average Joe or Jane, Joe or Annie.

So I ask really basic questions like how does a ballistic missile work?

And it's very simple.

That 26 minutes and 40 seconds I told you about.

So there's three phases of a ballistic missile.

It launches.

It has boost phase.

First five minutes.

Imagine a rocket.

You've seen launches, that fire coming out the bottom.

That boosts the rocket for five minutes.

That's when it's detectable from space.

Then it enters mid-course phase, which is going to be 20 minutes, arcing across the globe to its target.

That is the only place where the interceptor missile can get it, if it can.

And it's 500 miles up.